Ordinary Form:

Sunday Gospel Scripture Study.  Video.  As I write this the video is not yet available so keep checking.

John Paul II Catholic University.  Video, approx. 5 minutes.  I’ve been having problems with my computer; could someone tell me if the sound quality of this video is bad?

Daily Word: Text and Commentary on the readings taken from the Navarre Bible.

• 1st Reading
• 2nd Reading
• Gospel Reading

Daily Gospel.  Another great daily resource.  Contains the Gospel reading of the day, a link to a brief reflection, usually by a Church Father or Saint.  The If you are viewing the page on a day other than Sunday, July 26 you must click the blue arrow and select the date.  You can get this resource daily via email.

• Readings.
• Commentary.  By St Hilary.  Very brief.
• Saint of the day.  Very brief.

Word Sunday.  Contains a podcast, the Scripture readings with brief commentary, children’s readings, and suggested family activities.

Word On Fire.  Audio sermon by Father Robert Barron.

Extraordinary Form: Please note that the readings for the EF differ from those of the OF.

The Pulpit Orator.  Outstanding sermons from Father Johann Evangelist Zollner.

• Homiletic Sketch #1: Why We Must Mortify The Deeds Of The Flesh.
• Homiletic Sketch #2: The Parable Of The Unjust Steward.
• Dogmatic Sketch: On The Particular Judgment.
• Liturgical Sketch: On St Mary Magdalen, St James the Greater, and St Anne.

St Thomas Aquinas Homily Notes:

• On the Epistle.
• On the Gospel.  Please not that the Gospel reading in St Thomas’ day differed from that of the 1962 Missal.  I’ve included the link because these notes are excellent sources for reflection and meditation.

Instructions for the 8th Sunday after Pentecost.  Includes a Moral Lesson Concerning Detraction.

Homily by St Jerome.  Includes Gospel Reading.

Sermon on the Unjust Steward.

St Alphonsus Ligouri.  Sermon on the Unjust Steward.  The text is faded, increase text size or use the “zoom in” feature for easier reading.

Sermon on the Death of the Just.

Homily on the Epistle Reading. By Bishop Bonomelli

God: His Knowability, Essence, and Attributes

Chapter 1

The Knowability of God.

PREFATORY REMARKS.- Here below man can know God only by analogy; hence we are constrained to apply to Him the three scientific questions: An sit, Quid sit, and Qualis sit, that is to say: Does He exist? What is His Essence? and What are His qualities or attributes? Consequently in theology, as in philosophy, the existence, essence, and attributes of God must form the three chief heads of investigation. The theological treatment differs from the philosophical in that it considers the subject in the light of supernatural Revelation, which builds upon and at the same time confirms, supplements, and deepens the conclusions of unaided human reason. Since the theological question regarding the existence of God resolves itself into the query: Can we know God?-the treatise De Deo Uno naturally falls into three parts: (1) The knowability of God; (2) His essence; and (3) His divine properties or attributes.

Part 1
The Knowability of God

Chapter 1
Human Reason Can Know God

Section 1
Man Can Gain a Knowledge of God from the Physical Universe.
Article 1
The Positive Teaching of Revelation

This Chapter is divided into three major sections, and these in turn are divided into various articles. Due to the length of some of these sections I will often be publishing them in two or more post.

Article 1.- The Positive Teaching of Revelation. In entering upon this division of our treatise, we assume that the reader has a sufficient acquaintance with the philosophical proofs for the existence of God, as furnished by theodicy and apologetics. As against the attempt of atheists and traditionalists to deny the force and stringency of these proofs, Catholic theology staunchly upholds the ability of unaided human reason to know God. Witness this deinition of the (First) Vatican Council: If anyone shall say that the one true God, our Creator and Lord, cannot be certainly known by the natural light of human reason; let him be anathema. Let us see how this dogma can be proved from Holy Scripture and Tradition.

1. The Argument From Sacred Scripture.-a) Indirectly the possibility of knowing God by means of His Creatures can be shown from Romans 2:14 sqq.: For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law; these, having not the law, are a law to themselves.
Who shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them: and their thoughts between themselves accusing or also defending one another,
In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.

The “law” of which St Paul here speaks, is identical in content with the moral law of nature; the same which constituted the formal subject-matter of supernatural Revelation in the Decalogue. Hence, considering the mode of Revelation, there is a well-defined distinction, not to say opposition, between the moral law as perceived by unaided human reason, and the revealed Decalogue. Whence it follows, against the teaching of Estius, that “gentes,” in the above quoted passage of St Paul, must refer to the heathen, in the strict sense of the word, not to Christian converts from Paganism. For, one who has the material content of the Decalogue “written in the heart,” so that, without having any knowledge of the positive Mosaic legislation, he is “a law unto himself,” being able, consequently, to comply “naturally” with the demands of the Decalogue, and having to look forward on Judgment Day to a trial conducted merely on the basis of his own conscience,-such a one, I say, is outside the sphere of supernatural Revelation.

From this passage of St Paul’s letter to the Romans we argue as follows: There can be no knowledge of the natural moral law derived from unaided human reason, unless parallel with it, and derived from the same source, there runs a natural knowledge of God as the supreme lawgiver revealing Himself in the conscience of man. Now, St Paul expressly teaches that the Gentiles were ale to observe the natural law “naturaliter”-”by nature”-i.e., without the aid of supernatural revelation. Since no one can observe a law unless he knows it, St Paul’s supposition obviously is that the existence of God, qua author and avenger of the natural law, can likewise be known naturaliter, that is to say, by unaided human reason.

b) A direct and stringent proof for our thesis can be drawn from Wisdom 13:1 sqq., and Rom 1:18 sqq.

Wisdom 13:1 sqq.-After denouncing the folly of those “in whom there is not the knowledge of God,” the Book of Wisdom continues (13:5 sq.): For by the greatness of the beauty, and of the creature, the creator of them may be seen, so as to be known thereby…But then again they are not to be pardoned; for if they were able to know so much as to make a judgment of the world, how did they not more easily find out the Lord thereof?

a careful analysis of this passage reveals the following line of thought: The existence of God is an object of the same cognitive faculty that explores the visible world,-i.e., human reason. Hence the medium of our knowledge of God can be none other than that same material world, the magnitude and beauty of which leads us to infer that there must be a Creator who brought it forth. Such a knowledge of God is more easily acquired than a deeper knowledge of the creatural world; in fact, absence of it would argue unpardonable carelessness. As viewed by the Old Testament writer, therefore, nature without any extraneous aid on the part of Revelation or any special illumination by supernatural grace, furnishes sufficient data to enable the mind of man to attain to a knowledge of the existence of God.

Romans 1:18 sqq.-We have a parallel passage in the New Testament, which reaches its climax in verse 20: For the visible things of Him (God) from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable.

In other words:-God, Who is per se invisible, after some fashion becomes visible to human reason. But how? Not by positive revelation, nor yet by the interior grace of faith; but soley by means of a natural revelation imbedded in the created world. To know God from nature appears to be such an easy and matter-of-fact process (even to man in his fallen state), that the heathen are called “inexcusable” in their ignorance and are in punishment therefore “given up to the desires of their heart unto uncleaness.”

c) By way of supplementing this argument from Holy Scripture we will briefly advert to the important distinction which the Bible makes, or at least intimates as existing, between popular and scientific knowledge of God. The former comes spontaneously and without effort, while the latter demands earnest research and conscientious study, and where there is guilty ignorance, involves the risk of man’s falling into the errors of polytheism, pantheism, ect. We find this same distinction made by St Paul in his sermons at Lystra and Athens, and we meet it again in the writings of the Fathers, coupled with the consideration that, to realize the existnece of a Supreme Being men have but to advert to the fact that nations, like individuals, are plainly guided and directed by God’s Providence. In his sermon at Lystra, after noting that god had allowed the Gentiles “To walk in their own ways,” that is to say, to become the prey of false religions, the Apostle declare that He nevertheless “left not Himself without testimony, doing good from heaven, giving rains and frutiful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:16). Before the Areopagus at Athens, the great Apsotle of the Gentiles, pointing to the altar dedicated “To the Unknown God,” said: “God, who made the world…and hath made one all mankind, to dwell upon the whole face of the earth, determining appointed times and the limits of their habitation, that they should seek God, if happily they may feel after him or find him, although he be not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and are (Acts 17:24-28). In the following verse (29) he calls attention to the unworthy notion that the Divinity is “like unto gold, or silver, or stone, the graving of art, and device of man.” Both sermons assume that there is a twofold knowledge of God: the one direct, the other reflex. The direct knowledge of God arises spontaneously in the mind of every thinking man who contemplates the visible universe and ponders the favors continually lavished by Providence. In the reflexive or metaphysical stage of this knowledge of God, on the other hand, man is exposed to the temptation wrongly to transfer the concept of god to objects not divine, and thus to fall into gross polytheism or idolatry (see Wisdom 13:6 sqq.). We have, therefore, Scriptural warrant for holding that the idea of God is entirely spontaneous in its origin, but may easily be perverted in the course of its scientific development.

2. The Patristic Argument may be reduced to three main propositions.

a) In the first place, the Fathers teach that God manifests Himself in His visible creation, and may be perceived there by man without the aid of supernatural revelation.

Athenagoras calls the existing order of the material world, its magnitude and beauty, “pledges of divine worship” and adds: “For the visible is the medium by which we perceive the invisible.” Clement of Alexandria, too, insists that we gain our knowledge of Divine Providence from the contmeplation of God’s works in nature, so much so that it is unnecessary to resort to elaborate arguments to prove the existence of God. “All men,” he sys, “Greeks and barbarians, discern God, the Father and Creator of all things, unaided and without instruction.” St Basil call the visible creation “a school and institution of divine knowledge.” St Chrysostom, in hi sthird homily on the Epistle to the Romans apostrophized St Paul thus: “Did God call the Gentiles with His voice? Certainly not. But He has created something which is apt to draw their attention more forcibly than words. He has put in the midst of them the created world and thereby from the mere aspect of visible things, the learned and the unlearned, the Scythian and the barbarian, can all ascend to God.” Similarly St Gregory the Great teaches: “By the use of his reason every man must come to the conclusion that the very fact that he is a rational creature proves that his Creator is God.”

b) The Fathers further teach: From even a superficial contemplation of finite things there must arise spontaneously, in every thinking man, at least a popular knowledge of God.

To explain how natural it is to rise from a contemplation of the physical universe to the existence of God, some of the Fathers call the idea of God “an innate conviction put by nature in the mind of man,” a knowledge which is “not acquired,” but “a dowry of reason,” and which, precisely because it is so easy of acquisition, is quite common among men. Tertullian calls upon “the soul of the Gentiles” to give testimony to God,-not the soul which “has learned in the school of wisdom,” but that which is “simplex, rudis, impolita et idiotica.-“Magistra natura,” he says, anima discipula-Nature is the teacher, the soul the pupil.” St Augustine says that the consciousness we have of God blends with the very essence of human reason: “For such is the energy of true Godhead, that it cannot be altogether and utterly hidden from any rational creature. For with the exception of a few in whom nature has become outrageously depraved, the whole race of an acknowledges God as the maker of this World.” seeking a deeper explanation, several Fathers (e.g., Justin Martyr, and St Basil) have raised the rational soul to the rank of an essential image of the Eternal Logos, calling it logos spermatikos, which irresistibly seeks out and finds God in the universe.

c) The Fathers finally teach that human reason possesses, both in the visible world of exterior objects, and in its own depths, sufficient means to develop the popular notion of God into a philosophical concept.

The Greek Fathers, who had to combat paganism and the heresy of Eunomians, generally relied on two arguments as sufficient to enable any man to form a philosophical concept of God; viz., the cosmological and the teleological. Augustine’s profounder mind turned to the purely metaphysical order of the true, the good, and the beautiful, to deduce therefrom the existence of Substantial Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. This trend of mind did not, however, prevent him from acknowledging the validity of the teleological and cosmological argument. “Interroga mundum, ornatum coeli, fulgorem dispositionemque siderum…interroga omina et vide, si non sensu suo tamquam tibi respondent: Deus nos fecit. Haec et philosophi nobiles quaesierunt et ex arte artificem congnoverunt…Quod curiositate invenerunt superbia perdiderunt.”

Subdivision of Special Dogmatic Theology.-The principal subject of dogmatic theology as such is not Christ, nor the Church, but God. Now, God can be considered from a twofole point of view: either absolutely, in His essence, or relatively, in His outward activity (operatio ad extra). Dogmatic theology is accordingly divided into two well-defined, though quantitatively unequal parts: (1) the doctrine of God per se, and (2) that of His operation ad extra.

The first part may again be subdivided into two sections, one of which treats of God, considered in the unity of His Nature (De Deo Uno secundum naturam), and the other of the Trinity of Persons (De Deo Trino secundum personas). His operation ad extra God manifests as Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier, and Consummator. Divine Revelation, so far as it regards the created universe, includes the creation of nature, the establishment of the supernatural order and the fall from that order of the rational creatures-i.e., men and angels. The treatise on the Redemption (De Verbo Incarnato) comprises, besides the revealed teaching on the Person of our Savior (Christology), the doctrine of the atonement (Sorteriology), and of the Blessed Mother of the Lord (Mariology). In His role of Sanctifier, God operates partly through His invisible grace (De gratia Christi), partly by means of visible, grace-conferring signs or Sacraments (De Sacramentis, in genere et in specie). The Dogmatic teaching of the Church on God the Consummator, is developed in Eschatology (De Novissimis). Into this framework the entire body of special dogma can be compressed.

(a) On the threshold we meet that most popular and most important division of theology into theoretical and practical, according as theology is considered either as a speculative science or as furnishing rules for the guidance of conduct.  Theoretical theology is the science of faith in its proper sense, or dogmatics; practical theology is ethical or moral theology.

Although it will not due to tear these disciplines asunder, because they are parts of one organic whole, and for the further reason that the main rules of right conduct are also dogmatic principles; yet there is good ground for treating the two separately, as has been the custom since the seventeenth century.  A glance into the Summa of St Thomas shows that in the Middle Ages dogmatic and moral theology were treated as parts of one organic whole.  Upon the subdivisions of either branch, or the manner in which historical theology (either as Biblical science or Church history), is to be subsumed under the general subject, this is not the place to descant.

(b)  Dogmatic theology naturally falls into two great subdivisions, general and special.  General dogmatics, which defends the faith against the attacks of heretics and infidels, is also known by the name of Apologetics, or, more properly, Fundamental Theology, for the reason that, as demonstratio christiana et catholica, it lays the foundations for special dogmatics, or dogmatic theology proper.  Of late it has become customary to assign to fundamental theology a number of topics which might just as well be treated in special dogmatics, such as, e.g., the rule of faith, the Church, the papacy, and the relation between faith and reason.  This commendable practice grew out of the necessity of fairly dividing the subject-matter of these two branches of theology, but is chiefly due to the consideration that the topics named really belong to the foundations of dogmatic theology proper, and besides, being doctrines in regard to which the various denominations differ, they require a more detailed and controversial treatment.

We propose to follow this practice and to exclude from the present work all those subjects which more properly belong to general dogmatics.  We define special dogmatics, or dogmatic theology proper, after the example of Scheeben, as “the scientific exposition of the entire domain of theoretical knowledge, which can be obtained from divine Revelation, of God Himself and His activity, based upon the dogmas of the Church.”  By emphasizing the words theoretical and dogmas, this definition excludes moral theology, which is also based upon divine Revelation and the teaching of the Church, but is practical rather than theoretical.  A dogma is a norm of knowledge; the moral law is a standard of conduct; though, of course, both are ultimately rooted in the same ground, viz., divine Revelations contained in Holy Scripture and Tradition, and expounded by the Church.

(c)  Another division of dogmatic theology, that into positive and Scholastic, regards method rather than substance.  Positive theology, of which our catechisms contain a succinct digest, limits itself to ascertaining and stating the dogmatic teaching contained in the sources of Revelation.  Among its most prominent exponents we may mention: Petavius, Thomassin, Liebermann, Perrone, Simar, Unrter and others.  Thomassin, and especially Petavius, successfully combined the positive with the speculative method.  When positive theology assumes a polemical tone, we have what is called Controversial Theology, a science which Cardinal Bellarmine in the seventeenth century developed against the so-called reformers.

Dogmatic theology is called Scholastic, when, assuming and utilizing the results of the positive method, it undertakes: (a) to unfold the deeper content of dogma; (b) to set forth the relations of the different dogmas to one another; (c) by syllogistic process to deduce from given or certainly established premises so-called “theological conclusions;” and (d) to make plausible, though, of course, not to explain fully, to our weak human reason, by means of philosophical meditation, and especially of proofs from analogy, the dogmas and mysteries of the faith.  These four points, since St Anselm’s day, constituted the specific program of medieval Scholasticism.  In order to do full justice to its task, dogmatic theology must combine both methods, the positive and the Scholastic; that is to say, it must not limit itself to ascertaining and expounding the dogmas of the Church, but, after ascertaining them and setting them forth in the most luminous manner possible, must endeavor to adapt them as much as can be to our weak human reason.

The great medieval Scholastics, notably St Thomas Aquinas and St Bonaventure, treated what are called dogmatic truths as generally know data;-a safe procedure in those days because collections of Biblical and Patristic proofs for each separate dogma were then in the hands of every student.  As the most useful instrument for the speculative treatment of dogma, they seized upon, the the Platonic philosophy, but the system elaborated by the great Stagirite (Aristotle).  In preferring Aristotle, Scholasticism did not, however, antagonize the Fathers and early ecclesiastical writers, who, as is well known, had a strong penchant for Plato.  Both Plato and Aristotle may be said to lean on their common master, Socrates, who had grasped with rare acumen the fundamentals of natural religion, wherefore Socratic philosophy, despite its incompleteness, has justly been extolled as the Philosophia perennis. It cannot be denied, however, that theology in its various branches, not excepting dogma, owes a wholesome impulse to modern philosophy, in so far as modern philosophy, especially since Kant, sharpened the critical spirit in method and argumentation, deepened the treatment of many dogmatic problems, and made “theoretical doubt” the starting point of every truly scientific inquiry.  Since the Protestant Reformation threw doubt upon, nay even denied the principle dogmas of the Church, dogmatic theology has been, and still is compelled to lay stress upon demonstration from positive sources, especially Holy Writ.  A fusion of the positive with the Scholastic method of treatment was begun as early as the seventeenth century by theologians like Gotti and the Wirceburgenses, whose example has found many successful imitators in mosern times (Franzelin, Scheeben, Chr. Pesch, Billot, and others).  To the works of these authors must be added the commentaries on the writings of Aquinas by Cardinal Satolli, L. Janssens, and Lepicier.  For reasons into which it is not necessary to enter here, the series of dogmatic text books of which this is the first, while it will not entirely discard the speculative method of the Scholastics. which postulates rare proficiency in dialectics and a thorough mastery of Aristotelian metaphysics, as developed by the Schoolmen, will employ chiefly the positive method of the exact sciences.

Mystic theology is not an adversary but a sister of Scholastic theology.  While the latter appeals exclusively to the intellect, mysticism addresses itself mainly to the heart.  Hence its advantages, but also its perils, for when the intellect is relegated to the background, there is danger that unclear heads will drift into pantheism, as the example of many exponents of later mysticism shows.  It must be remarked, however, in this connection that the greatest mystics, like St Bonaventure, Richard and Hugh of St Victor, and St Bernard, were also thorough-going Scholastics.

]]> http://thedivinelamp.stblogs.com/2009/01/05/general-introduction-to-dogmatic-theology-3-definition-of-dogmatic-theology/feed/ 0 http://thedivinelamp.stblogs.com/2009/01/03/general-introduction-to-dogmatic-theology/ http://thedivinelamp.stblogs.com/2009/01/03/general-introduction-to-dogmatic-theology/#comments Sat, 03 Jan 2009 20:33:43 +0000 Dim Bulb http://thedivinelamp.stblogs.com/?p=1199 2.  The high rank of Theology.- Theology must be assigned first place among the sciences.  This appears:

a) From its immanent dignity. While the secular sciences have no other guide that the flickering lamp of human reason, theology is based upon faith, which, both objectively as Revelation, and subjectively as grace, is an immediate gift of God.  St Paul emphasizes this truth in 1 Cor 2:7 sqq: We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery [a wisdom] which is hidden,…which none of the princes of this world knew…but to us God hath revealed by his spirit.”  St Thomas traces theology to God Himself: Theologiae principium prosimum quidens est fides, sed primum est intellectus divinus, cui nos credimus (Commentary on the De Trinitate of Boethius).

b)  From its ulterior object.  The secular sciences, apart from the gratification they afford to man’s natural curiosity and love of knowledge, aim at no other end than that of shaping his earthly life, beautifying it, and perhaps perfecting his natural happiness; while theology, on the other hand, guides man, in all his various modes of activity, including the social and the political, to a supernatural end, whose delights “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard” (1 Cor 2:9).

c)  From the certitude which it ensures.  The certitude of faith, upon which theology bases all its deductions-a certitude that is rooted in the inerrancy of Divine Reason, rather than in the participated infallibility of a finite, and consequently fallible, mind-excels even that highest degree of human certitude which is within the reach of metaphysics and mathematics.

This threefold excellence of theology supplies us with sufficient motives for studying it diligently and thoroughly.  There does not exist a more sublime science.  Theology is the queen of all the sciences,-a queen to whom even philosophy, despite its dignity and independence, must pay homage.  Hence the oft-quoted Scholastic axiom: Philosophia est ancilla theologiae. The more directly a science leads up to God, the nobler, the sublimer, and the more useful it necessarily is.  But can any science lead more directly to God than theology, which treats solely of God and things divine?

We should, however, beware lest our study of theology degenerate into mere inquisitive prying of the sort against which St Paul warns us: Not to be more wise than it behooveth to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety (Rom 12:3).  Let us not forget that it is punishable temerity to attempt to fathom the mysteries, strictly and properly so called, of faith.  More than any other study that of theology should be accompanied by pious meditation and humble prayer

1.  Revelation not complete in the beginning. Supernatural Revelation was not given at once in all its completeness.  From the day of Creation to the day of Judgment God has spoken, and will speak, to mankind at sundry times and in divers manners (Heb 1:1).  Natural and Supernatural Revelation run in parallel lines.  Yet, whilst the former is addressed to all men at all times in the same form, the latter is made immediately only to individuals, and is not necessarily meant for all mankind.  We are not, however, concerned here with private revelations, but only with those which are public, i.e., destined for all men.

2.  Two portions of revelation. Public Revelation may be divided into two portions: the Revelation made to man in his original state of integrity in Paradise, and the Revelation made to fallen man-that is, the Revelation of Redemption.

a.  The Revelation in Paradise was public because it was to be handed down to all men as an inseparable complement of Natural Revelation.  Holy Scripture mentions as its subject-matter only the law of probation given to Adam, but it connects this law with the supernatural order because the possession of immortality was to be the reward of obedience.  It may be inferred, however, that all other necessary elements of the order of grace were clearly revealed, e.g., the Divine adoption of man, and the corresponding moral law, although the Old Testament mentions only the gift of integrity.

b.  The Revelation of Redemption. The Revelation of Redemption, or of the Gospel, was preparatory in the Old Testament and complete in the New.  The preparatory stage was begun with the Patriarchs and continued with Moses and the Prophets.  The Patriarchal Revelation contained the promise of the coming of the Redeemer, and pointed out the family from which He was to spring; it also enacted some few positive commandments.  But as it did not form a complete system of religious truths and morals, and added little to what might be known by the unaided light of reason, it may be called the Law of Nature.  The next stage, the Mosaic Revelation, was a closer preparation for the Revelation of the Gospel, and laid the foundation of an organized kingdom of God upon earth.  Its object was to secure the worship of the one God and to keep alive the expectation of the Redeemer.  Man is considered as a guilty servant of God, not as His child (Gal 4:1).  Nevertheless even this Revelation contains little more than Natural Revelation, except the positive ordinances for safeguarding the Law of Nature, for the institution of public worship, and for the atonement for sin.  In the days of the Prophets the Revelation of the Gospel already began to dawn: the supernatural and the Divine began to appear in purer and clearer outline.  Finally, the Revelation completed through Christ and the Holy Ghost surpasses all the others in dignity because its Mediator was the Only Begotten Son of God (Heb 1:1), Who told what He Himself had heard (John 1:18), nay, Who is Himself the Word of God, and in Whom God speaks (John 8:25).  The descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles supplemented and completed what Christ had revealed.  “When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will teach you all truth” (John 16:13).

3.  No further Revelation to be expected. The dignity and perfection of Christian Revelation require that no further public Revelation is to be made.  The Old Testament dispensation pointed to one that was to follow, but the Christian dispensation is that “which remaineth” (2 Cor 3:11; cf. Rom 10:3, sqq.; Gal 3:23, sqq.); an “immovable kingdom” (Heb 12:28); perfect and absolutely sufficient (Heb 7:11, sqq.); not the shadow, but the very image of the things to come (Heb 10:1).  And Christ distinctly says that His doctrine shall be preached until the consummation of the world, and declares “All things whatsoever I have heard from My Father I have made known unto you” (John 15:15), and “when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will teach you all truth” πασαν την αληθειαν (John 16:13).  The Apostles also exhort their disciples to stand by the doctrine which they received, and to listen only to the Church (2 Tim 2:2, and 3:14).  And the epistle ascribed to St Barnabas contains the well-known formula: “The rule of light is, to keep what thou has received without adding or taking away.”  Moreover, the Church has always rejected the pretension of those who claimed to have received new revelations of a higher order from the Holy Ghost, e.g., the Montanists, Manichaeans, Fraticelli, the Anabaptists, Quakers, and Irvingites.

The finality of the present Revelation does not, however, exclude the possibility of minor and susidiary revelations made in order to throw light upon doctrine or discipline.  The Church is the judge of the value of these revelations.  We may mention as instances of those which have been approved, the Feast of Corpus Christi and the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

From the above we deduce the existence of a gradual progress, both extensive and intensive, in Revelation.  The extensive progress does not start from Adam or Noah, but from Abraham, the patriarch selected among fallen mankind.  Patriarchal Revelation was made to a family, Mosaic Revelation to a people, Prophetical Revelation to several peoples, Christian Revelation to the whole world.  The intensive progress consists in a higher degree of illumination and a wider range of the revealed truths.  The intensive progress likewise begins with Abraham and ascends through Moses and the Prophets to Christ, Who leads us to the bright day of eternity.

Notion, Rank, and Division of Dogmatic Theology

1.  General definitions of Theology.-Dogmatic theology forms an essential part of theology in general, and therefore cannot be correctly defined unless we have an adequate notion of the latter.  Theology, then, generally speaking, is the science of faith.

a)  Theology is a science.  Every science deduces unknown truths from know and certain principles, by means of correct conclusions.  The dogmatician receives, and believingly embraces as his principle, the infallible truths of Revelation, and by means of logical construction, systematic grouping and correct deductions, erects upon this foundation a logical body of doctrine, as does the historian who works with the facts of history, or the jurist who is occupied with the statutes, or the scientist who employs bodies and their phenomena as materials for scientific construction.

It is true that some Scholastics, i.e., Durandus and Vasquez, have denied theology the dignity of a science, because it affords no intrinsic insight into the How and Why of Catholic dogmas, particularly the mysteries of the Most Holy Trinity, the Hypostatic Union, etc.  But neither do the profane sciences afford us always and everywhere an insight into their highest principles.  Euclidean geometry, for instance, stands and falls with the axiom of parallels, which have never yet been satisfactorily proved;-so much so that of late years there has been made an attempt to establish a “non Euclidean geometry” independent of that axiom.  To this should be added the consideration that there are sciences which derive their basic principles as lemmata from some higher science.  Such, for example, is metaphysics, which is quite generally admitted to be a true science.  Hence it is plain that the notion of a science, while of course it includes certainty, does not necessarily include evidence on the part of its principles.  According to the luminous teaching of St Thomas Aquinas: “Sacred doctrine is a science. We must bear in mind that there are two kinds of sciences. There are some which proceed from a principle known by the natural light of intelligence, such as arithmetic and geometry and the like. There are some which proceed from principles known by the light of a higher science: thus the science of perspective proceeds from principles established by geometry, and music from principles established by arithmetic. So it is that sacred doctrine is a science because it proceeds from principles established by the light of a higher science, namely, the science of God and the blessed. Hence, just as the musician accepts on authority the principles taught him by the mathematician, so sacred science is established on principles revealed by God.” (ST. Ia, q. 1, art 2).

b)  Its specific character theology derives from the fact that it is the science of faith, taking faith in both its objective and in its subjective sense.  Objectively considered, theology comprises all those truths (and those truths only) which have been supernaturally revealed and are contained in Scripture and Tradition, under the care of the infallible Church (depositum fidei). Hence all branches of sacred theology, including canon law and pastoral theology, are bottomed upon supernatural Revelation.  Subjectively considered, theology as a science presupposes faith; for, though reason is the  theologian’s principle of knowledge, yet not pure reason, but reason carried as it were beyond itself, borne, ennobled, and transfigured by supernatural faith.  It was in this sense that the Fathers insisted on the proposition: Gnosis super fidem aedificatur,” just as Scholasticism was founded on St Anselm’s famous axiom, “Fides quaerit intellectum.”

Hence a sharp distinction between philosophy and theology.  Philosophy, too, especially that branch of it known as Theodicy, treats of God, His existence, essence, and attributes; but it treats of them only in the light of unaided human reason; while theology, on the other hand, derives its knowledge of God and divine things entirely from Revelation, as contained in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, and proposed to the faithful by the infallible Church.  To elicit the act of faith demanded by this process, requires an interior grace (gratia fidei). While philosophy never transcends the bounds of pure reason, and therefore finds itself unable to prove the mysteries of faith by arguments drawn from its own domain, theology always and everywhere retains the character of a science founded strictly upon authority.

Part 2 will deal with “the high rank of theology,” while part 3 will be a “definition of dogmatic theology.

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